The End Of The Beginning
by V.Evergreen
Summary: Merlin only went back to Camelot once, and even then he did not stay. The story of the intervening years. Set after series 5.


Merlin only went back to Camelot once, and even then he did not stay.

He went at night, careful to evade all of the meagre knights that still tried to guard their city. No one saw him though Merlin almost wished they did.

He slipped through the door of Gauis's chambers like he had done so many times before, though he knew only too well of the differences. Gauis was asleep at the table, head resting on the open pages of a book. He'd obviously been searching for either a way to contact Merlin or just so he could feel a little less useless amid the storm of events. The sight was so achingly familiar that for a second everything felt as it should.

The notion was quick to dispel.

Merlin moved silently to his room. He laid down on the lumpy mattress and tried to savour the feeling of being home, for he knew that his days before he left for good were numbered.

~o~o~o~

The next day he was woken by Gauis shaking him. When the old man saw him open his eyes neither moved for a moment. But then Merlin got up and Gauis knew him well enough to know what that look in his eyes meant. Aged arms pulled him into a fierce embrace and though all Merlin wanted to do was cry and rage and scream, he couldn't. He just felt empty. He had cried all his tears while his king lay in his arms.

He could almost hear Arthur in his head,

"_Don't be such a girl, _Mer_lin!_"

It was a time for action. There were many thing to be done of which mourning was but one.

~o~o~o~

The minute he saw Gwen he knew that she knew Arthur was dead.

She wore his seal around her neck and dark shadows under her eyes. When she saw him for a second she was just the serving girl who has lost her husband but with a minute shifting of her shoulders and a tilt to her chin she became the Queen of Camelot who ruled over a united land. She walked over to Merlin and just for a second a spark of hope lit in her eyes.

He shook his head once and it was extinguished before it even had a chance to catch.

~o~o~o~

When he saw Percival and Leon at the end of the armoury corridor he nearly turned around.

He didn't even know why he was there; only that he seemed to have been wandering while his feet took him down familiar routes.

They saw him and within the next second they were beside him. Leon clasped his shoulder while Percival just looked at him. It made him uncomfortable; Percival was more perceptive than most gave him credit for and it made him uneasy to think of what he might see.

There was an uneasy silence between the three of them as each wondered how to even begin.

It was Percival who broke it first. "Merlin," he began, his voice more sombre than Merlin had ever imagined it could be, "I don't know if anyone thought to tell you, but Gwaine passed in battle."

Merlin could only stare at him in horror. He stumbled back against the wall as his legs gave out and he slid down it. The other two men crouched down beside him and Leon looked at him in concern.

He couldn't even comprehend it. So many dead, and why? Out of all the knights he'd known why did only two stand before him?

It was Leon who spoke next, "He died by Morgana's own hand. He put up a valiant battle." There was a look of unrest about Leon's face from which Merlin knew he was only getting the edited version of events but he didn't care for anything past what he had heard.

Suddenly, a vicious glee ripped through him, the likes of which he had never felt before and scared him with its ferocity, "I'm glad to have killed her."

Leon's eyes went wide, "You killed her?" He asked.

Merlin ignored him, "Is he here?"

From the look on his face he could tell that Leon didn't know what he was trying to say but Percival nodded in understanding, "We recovered him this morning," he stopped and for a second and it looked as though the words were choking him, "the burial is to be this afternoon."

Merlin gestured for them to lead the way.

~o~o~o~

They left him alone when they arrived. For that he was grateful.

Gwaine was laid out with countless others but Merlin barely spared them a glance. He had eyes for only one.

His friend laid there cold, pale and stiller than he ever was in life.

He reached out but his hand stilled before he could touch him,

_"I'm not here for Arthur." _

_"You were my first friend." _

_"You're my best friend." _

The worst thing was that for the life of him he couldn't remember what he had said in return.

"I always thought I'd go before you," he whispered, the words coming seemingly from their own volition, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. About the magic, about everything. I should have. You wouldn't have told anyone." The lump in his throat was becoming harder to speak around and he brushed his hand against the fallen knight's face, "I did you a disservice and for that I am truly sorry."

His eyes caught a glint of metal in the form of the pendant he had always seen hanging from around his friend's neck but had never thought to ask what it represented. He'd never know now, he supposed.

Without knowing why, he unfastened it and tied it around his own neck, tucking it beneath his shirt.

"I'll miss you."

With that he was gone. He didn't stop to see the knights, nor Gwen, nor Gauis. He walked until the trees rose up and Camelot's walls were far behind him. Then he walked some more.

~o~o~o~

The first thing he did was travel to see his mother.

The minute the news reached her that Merlin was back (and news travelled fast in a town as small as Ealdor) she ran out of the door, desperate to catch a glimpse of her son. When she saw a lone figure making their way toward the village she ran out to meet him, not minding that she was making a scene or that her old bones protested at such a spectacle. The moment she reached him she knew that he was not the same son she had seen the last time she had visited but she flung her arms around him, hoping that for just a little while longer a mother's embrace could erase her son's pain. It could not but she tried anyway. When Merlin's arms tightened around her and his frame started to shake with the sorrow that no words could express she merely held him tighter. After all, that was all she could do.

She led him inside gently by the arm, ignoring the whispers and nudges of the neighbours, all of whom were wondering and speculating as to what could have happened to make the gangly and perpetually happy teen that they had all known into the broken and bereft man they saw in front of them. She doesn't want to but Hunith wondered right alongside them.

When she managed to settle him down the words poured out of them. Torrents of ugly words spelling nothing but heartbreak. She didn't want to listen but she knew instinctively that her son needed her to. She was first of all a mother, and so she listened.

He paused only for a moment before he continued on in his story. It was all Hunith could do to remain as her son recounted how his father saved him. She had known Balinor to be dead for many years and yet she did not question how he managed to appear to their son. She had always thought that if things had gone differently he would have been a good husband to her and an even better father to Merlin. At least she was right on one account.

Merlin did not stay for long.

A few nights later and she found herself choking back tears as her son left again. The first time he left it was with hope and promise in his eyes. This time it was with a heavy heart full of sorrow.

Her little boy grew up.

~o~o~o~

He travelled for many years.

Sometimes with Druids but mostly without.

It was through them that he gleaned all of his information. He heard of an old court physician who passed in his sleep many moons ago. He heard of the prosperous age of Albion and the peace that reigned over all. Of the queen that ruled fairly and equally over a land united.

He had not seen her since the day he left Camelot so it came as a great shock when he heard a voice call out across the forest in which he had been wandering, "Merlin?!" The voice was achingly familiar, incredibly dear and filled with such wonder and hope it made him turn immediately. The sight he saw was so unexpected it took a second for it to sink in.

It was Gwen. There in the forest.

She was surrounded by the royal envoy, obviously on her way back from or to a neighbouring kingdom. He stood frozen as she dismounted her horse and ran to him, the grace of her many years on the throne dissipating until she was stood before him, chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. A cautious hand reached out for him and brushed against his cheek. "It is you." She breathed in awe. Suddenly, she was hugging him and without conscious thought he was hugging her back. "I wasn't sure." She said laughing as she pulled back from the embrace, "You've hardly aged a day."

He wished he could say the same back to her, but any word of it would be a lie. Her hair, once thick and full, had grown thin over the years and tinged with grey. Fine lines clustered at the corner of her eyes and movements that were once so quick and fluid were now slow and measured.

There was no doubt that she was still a beautiful woman, but she was also an ageing one.

"Where've you been?" She asked quickly as though eager to savour his presence while she still had it.

He managed a weak smile, "Here and there. I travel with the Druids occasionally."

Gwen glanced back to her envoy who seem to be growing anxious at their queen's rash actions and waved down their concerns.

Merlin looked past her shoulder and, to his great surprise, locked eyes with Sir Leon. Leon inclined his head. He, too, was aged but he still held his place loyally, by Camelot's side.

"Druids, you say?" Asked Gwen, a smirk playing around the edge of her mouth, "And how do they find travelling with the great Emrys?"

Merlin should have known that Gwen would have found a way to know what she didn't already. It wouldn't have taken a overly bright mind to work out he and the sourcerer that had appeared on the battlefield were one and the same but it would have taken work to find the prophecies of Emrys and connect them to him.

Emrys. He had come to hate that name.

It was how he introduced himself to the Druids now, if only to save time and avoid the questions as to who he was. It was them who informed him of the word's true meaning.

Emrys.

_Immortal._

The point was driven home by the weary but smiling faces he once knew. His remained unchanged (though he did not know how long for) as a constant reminder that whatever he did, eventually the people he loved would be taken from him, if only by their natural passing.

Gwen tried to convince him to stay and come back to Camelot with her. It felt so good to talk with her just one more final time that he almost agreed.

That was how he knew it was time to move on.

~o~o~o~

The years continued to pass.

He still travelled with the Druids and he was with them when he learned that both Camelot and Albion had fallen. Apathy was the strongest emotion he could summon. Gwen had passed a great many years ago along with anyone else he might once have known. Unconciously, his hand raised up to touch the worn thin pendant that still hung around his neck.

It had been a bountiful age but all things had to come to an end. It was the way of the world. He just wished it didn't feel like it had all been for nothing. Arthur was still dead, Gwen had joined him along with all of his once friends and Merlin still had no one to turn to. All that kept him strong in times like this were the rumours that one day Arthur would rise again when he was needed.

Some days Merlin wondered if he would ever live to see that day.

~o~o~o~

Merlin had lost count of the years now.

He had lived through more lifetimes than anyone really had a right to, and he was so very tired. This new time he lived in was not for him. Miracles were performed every day in the form of new sciences, brave explorations and modern technology. The only price was the magic that slowly seeped from the land. He could feel it waning, though his own never did. He thought that maybe he had become more attuned to it in his old age.

He had travelled and lived with the Druids until there were no more left, all traces of them faded from the land as technology slowly took over and reigned where magic had once.

In the end he had no choice but to settle.

He was known in the village as the old man who refused to talk or often even acknowledge anyone else.

Everyday he walked along the road and up to the lake where he would stand and look out, often for hours at a time. Some people even swore they saw him talking to himself there. Then he would drag his weary bones back to his rundown cottage and not be seen again until the next day.

For Merlin it was something of a pilgrimage.

He knew that it probably wasn't the wisest decision to live so close to the Lake of Avalon but he found a small measure of comfort in seeing it remain so unchanged. He was not one to pass up the offer of such a reassurance when they came by so rarely, and so he stayed.

It was a hard walk down every morning, and though he knew that if he put both his mind and his magic to it he could probably have back the youth he once knew, the effort was too much and so he never did. He didn't see the point of it and so he simply didn't do it.

He didn't see the point of much any more.

~o~o~o~

Three short years later and Merlin was convinced that the years had finally driven him insane.

From just around the corner he could hear a voice that had been echoing inside his head for appoproaching two millennia.

He almost didn't want to turn the corner and see if he right; for the first time in too long he could feel hope running through his veins and a smile threatening to lift the corner of his mouth.

He felt his magic pull around him and when he looked down at his hands he saw not the wrinkled and sharply boned things to which he become accustomed but the smooth skin and strength of his youth. A hand over his face confirmed what he thought; his years had reduced along with his apathy.

The irony that he had become just as lazy as Arthur had always told him he was was not lost on him.

He turned the corner, invigorated with hope and conviction and finally saw what he'd been looking for.

A young man, sneering at another who looked almost terrified, "Honestly, what kind of an _idiot_-" his angry words were punctuated by even angrier gestures and each one was dear to Merlin.

He stepped forward, "Come, my friend, you've had your fun."

Arthur turned to face him, eyes challenging and jaw set. Merlin could have wept just from the relief of seeing his face again.

"Do I know you?" Arthur asked imperiously. _Yes_, Merlin wanted to shout, _better than any other_. Instead he mutely shook his head, holding back both the smile and the tears as images flashed before his eyes: Albion returning, loyal friends standing side by side, peace reigning with its protectors keeping it from shattering. A land united.

"And yet you call me friend."

And so the cycle begins again.

...

A/N- Still not over what happened in the last episode. Don't think I ever will be, but I just wanted to explore what so many years would be like on Merlin. If you liked it (or more likely didn't, given what it contains) please review, I'd love to know what you think.

Thanks for reading,

VE

ps. I think in the end it showed a green or a field of grass where Avalon had once been, but for the sake of this it's still a lake.


End file.
